Composition

In February 1830, Scott was recovering from a
first paralytic stroke. J.G. Lockhart, hoping to distract his
father-in-law from working on more arduous enterprises (preparing
the Magnum Opus and writing Count
Robert of Paris), suggested that he write a small volume
on witchcraft for 'Murray's Family Library'. As Scott had a
comprehensive collection of books on the subject immediately
to hand at Abbotsford,
Lockhart hoped that it would be a relatively easy project to
complete. Instead Scott, who enthusiastically greeted the idea,
merely added it to his task list. It was a theme that had fascinated
Scott since childhood. He had previously proposed collaborating
with Robert Surtees on a study of demonology in 1809, and with
Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe on a comic selection of supernatural
tales in 1812. In 1823, he had even written part of a dialogue
on popular superstitions which had failed to attract a sufficiently
enticing bid from Constable.

Lockhart's suggestion was partly sparked by the interest raised
by Robert Pitcairn's serial publication of Criminal Trials of
Scotland, covering proceedings between 1487 and 1624, and featuring
many cases of witchcraft. Pitcairn himself sent Scott transcripts
of as yet unpublished trials, and many other students of the occult
sent Scott source material on witchcraft while he was working on
the Letters. In addition, he drew on earlier demonologies
such as Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft, Robert
Kirk's Essay on the Subterranean Commonwealth, and Cotton
Mather's Magnalia Christi. Scott's arguments against a supernatural
explanation of such phenomena were influenced by John Ferriars's
'Of Popular Illusions and More Particularly of Modern Demonology'
and Thomas Jackson's Treatise Containing the Originall of Un-beliefe.
Composition was rapid, with the volume complete by mid-July 1830,
but Scott's interest waned long before the last page. It was published
on September 14, 1830, with ten illustrations by George Cruickshank.

Synopsis

The book takes the form of ten letters addressed to Lockhart,
the epistolary mode permitting Scott to be both conversational
in tone and discursive in method. In these, Scott surveys opinions
respecting demonology and witchcraft from the Old Testament period
to his own day. As a child of the Enlightenment, he adopts a rigorously
rational approach to his subject. Supernatural visions are attributed
to 'excited passion', to credulity, or to physical illness. The
medieval belief in demons is based on Christian ignorance of other
religions, leading to the conviction that the gods of the Muslim
or Pagan nations were fiends and their priests conjurers or wizards.
In the post-Reformation period, the primitive state of science
and predominance of mystical explanations of natural phenomena
fed fear of witchcraft. In the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,
witches were hunted with near-hysterical zeal. Examining Scottish
criminal trials for witchcraft, Scott notes that the nature of
evidence admissible gave free reign to accusers and left the accused
no chance of escape. Prisoners were driven to confess through despair
and the desire to avoid future persecution. Scott also observes
that trials for witchcraft were increasingly connected with political
crimes, just as in Catholic countries accusations of witchcraft
and heresy went together. Advances in science and the spread of
rational philosophy during the eighteenth century eventually undermined
the belief in supernatural phenomena, although pockets of superstition
remain. Scott's account is amply illustrated with anecdotes and
traditional tales and may be read as an anthology of uncanny stories
as much as a philosophical treatise.

Reception

The Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft were an immediate
commercial success, with Scott's sceptical attitude towards the
supernatural sharply dividing his readers. Critical reaction was
somewhat mixed. The Gentleman's Magazine and Imperial
Magazine warmly commended the work, and the Literary Gazette judged
it a 'most interesting volume for all ages', particularly apt to
correct 'idle phantasies in the young'. The Edinburgh Literary
Journal concurred that it was an 'interesting book' but did
not think that 'Sir Walter has gone very deep into the theory of
supernatural visitations, or thrown much light upon the origin
of the belief in them'. The Aberdeen Journal too questioned
the depth of Scott's scholarship, arguing that commercial considerations
weighed heavier with him than the spirit of philosophical inquiry. For
the Monthly Review, conversely, the subject was devoid of
all merit, a mere 'history of old women'. Subsequent scholars,
however, have recognized the Letters as one of the earliest
attempts to deal with magic and demonology in a scientific manner,
pre-empting much late nineteenth-century research on folklore,
ethnology, and popular religion.

For further information on the Letters, see P.G. Maxwell-Stuart's
introduction to the reprint published by Wordsworth in association
with the Folklore Society in 2001, details of which may be found
on the Recent Publications page.